Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 256-289 |
| Journal | English Literary Renaissance |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2018 |
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Angling for the "Powte" : a Jacobean Environmental Protest Poem. / Borlik, Todd; Egan, Clare.
In: English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 48, No. 2, 01.03.2018, p. 256-289.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Angling for the "Powte"
T2 - a Jacobean Environmental Protest Poem
AU - Borlik, Todd
AU - Egan, Clare
PY - 2018/3/1
Y1 - 2018/3/1
N2 - In his monumental 1662 history of the drainage of the fens, the antiquarian William Dugdale reports that outraged locals composed “libellous songs” to protest the theft of their commons. Preserving a rare specimen of this genre, Dugdale printed an anonymous ballad entitled “The Powtes Complaint.” The song adopts a non-human point of view to bewail the destruction of both the wetlands ecology and the fen-dwellers’ economy. This essay examines four different manuscripts of the ballad in the British Library, documenting their variants and commenting on their significance. It also seeks for answers to some pressing questions: when was the song written and where? What did it sound like? What socio-historical and environmental circumstances prompted its composition? How does the ballad portray the fenland ecology, and how does it compare with other seventeenth-century literary representations of the fens? What exactly is a pout? What is the nature of its complaint? And who was the person behind the song?
AB - In his monumental 1662 history of the drainage of the fens, the antiquarian William Dugdale reports that outraged locals composed “libellous songs” to protest the theft of their commons. Preserving a rare specimen of this genre, Dugdale printed an anonymous ballad entitled “The Powtes Complaint.” The song adopts a non-human point of view to bewail the destruction of both the wetlands ecology and the fen-dwellers’ economy. This essay examines four different manuscripts of the ballad in the British Library, documenting their variants and commenting on their significance. It also seeks for answers to some pressing questions: when was the song written and where? What did it sound like? What socio-historical and environmental circumstances prompted its composition? How does the ballad portray the fenland ecology, and how does it compare with other seventeenth-century literary representations of the fens? What exactly is a pout? What is the nature of its complaint? And who was the person behind the song?
KW - “The Powte’s Complaint”
KW - William Dugdale
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047324775&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1086/697753
DO - 10.1086/697753
M3 - Article
VL - 48
SP - 256
EP - 289
JO - English Literary Renaissance
JF - English Literary Renaissance
SN - 0013-8312
IS - 2
ER -